On the one hand, this is an INDYCAR opinion website. If we don’t address the issues that arose yesterday, we’re not doing our jobs and we’re doing our readers a major disservice.

But on the other hand, if we make sweeping and controversial declarations, we jeopardize the respect we’ve worked hard to earn in the paddock and we put our ability to report on the IZOD IndyCar Series without bias at risk.

Perhaps the solution is to look at the situation from a different angle. Here goes…

Fans are pissed.

I can’t remember seeing this much disillusion and resentment around this sport since 1995. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen so many self-proclaimed life-long fans threaten to give up if things don’t improve. This isn’t just your run-of-the-mill, typical jaded INDYCAR fan level of resentment. It’s permeated everything and everyone — even me, and I’ve been honored to be told by some of our readers that they see me as one of the more optimistic voices around INDYCAR racing.

The status quo just won’t do anymore. If people are to be expected to stick around, they need to see change. They demand demonstration of an understanding from the high ranks of INDYCAR that things are not right, that their opinions are respected, and that something is being done to rectify the problems.

People have been clinging to 2012 as a bastion of hope — new cars, new rules, new interest, and new upward momentum. But with the previously promised aero kits delayed for another year and the realization that no new car is going to fix the non-mechanical issues that plague the sport, this weekend saw much of that hope fly out the window.

(For the record, I don’t have a huge issue with delaying the aero kits to 2013 if it means they’ll be rolled out properly. But I seem to hold the minority opinion on that issue. That’s a topic for another post.)

From this weekend alone, there were several clear demonstrations of the issues that need to be resolved.

For example, during the race’s first rain delay period, I saw far too many people speculate that the Series was going to just run yellow flag laps to reach the halfway point and hand the win over to the perceived golden boy, Dario Franchitti. That ended up being demonstrably untrue. But the very fact that so many people saw it reasonable to speculate at such favoritism at all speaks volumes about how the administration of this sport is currently viewed.

And whenever fans try to go to the rule book to seek explanations, they’re met with a stream of wishy-washy language like “in general,” “INDYCAR may,” and “the Senior Official in his discretion” that leaves nearly every rule open to subjective, in-the-moment interpretation. As demonstrated in yesterday’s post-race press conference, even the participants question this. Scott Dixon said, “Today, I don’t even know why we have a rule book because it makes no sense.”

More importantly, New Hampshire was an interesting race with plenty of storylines, but here we are again focusing on the impact that officiating had on the outcome of the race instead of on the work that the drivers and teams have done. That fact speaks to the problem most of all.

At the end of the money cycle in any sport lies the common fan. Sure, the sponsors are the ones who truly pay the bills since the direct financial impact of ticket and merchandise sales is small, but those sponsors have no interest in pumping money into a sport with no one watching it at home.

And in the last 24 hours, the common fans have made their opinions abundantly clear: INDYCAR needs to make significant changes if it hopes to retain their respect.

I’ve retained a fistful of respect for BB simply because I feel anyone deserves at least that much. But his response to Sunday’s events were insulting.

He heard what the drivers, team techs, and his own people were saying and I’ll never believe otherwise. Unless it’s actually true that a fan sitting in the cheap seats with nothing more than a scanner has access to more information than race control.

BB is certainly a team player until the ball reaches him. ‘We’ made a bad call. ‘We’ should not have re-started. ‘We’ should have done that differently. ‘I’ didn’t know anything was awry. It was insulting listening to him apologize on behalf of the series while distancing himself from the mistake.

If this hasn’t sealed his fate then the entire IndyCar leadership is suspect.

I can look beyond the ‘bad call’ (for 2 reasons mainly, because mistakes happens so often in all sports due to the human element, and due to the fact that largely the finishing order seems reasonable given the situation), but that is also to say that justice should be served and appropriate steps taken to vastly improve the system that failed.

Where I’m actually infuriated is with this (yet again) delayed chassis timeline. Leadership of Indycar MUST be made to understand (not sure if they keep forgetting or what), that fans have been patient to the extreme and now it’s past time to cede to those loyal fans (which are the only ones left) by showing some respect and gratitude by keeping to the original timeline of 2012 rollout of mulitple chassis and engines.

They have delayed the next generation of car, engine, rules, etc. since the ‘originally scheduled’ 2008-9 revision. Now we’re looking at 2013 for a non-spec racing series?! Pitiful. Don’t test the camel’s back, Indycar, you may find you’ve finally overloaded it.

‘Now’, while it may seem unreasonable to the Series officials, is looking too late. ‘Now or never’ seems more appropriate.

F1 can come up with new chassis and engines from scratch every year, but it takes IICS +/- five years to roll out a chassis with very limited differences between teams? Pitiful. Oh, well, at least we can talk about two (and hopefully three) engines next year.

I enjoyed the New Hampshire Race. I was glad they raced as long as they did, despite the moisture. Race control was riding the edge, but crashed, just like drivers do from time to time – That’s racing. I have found race control’s explanations this season to be reasonable. And when they crashed, they admitted it and made the most fair decision they could. I truly respect that. Baseball umpires should be so reasonable. I think we fans need to be careful what we wish for. I think the racing this year has been awesome. The depth, the experience, the competition, etc. We may never have it so good again. How many are concerned that half the field next year will be a lesser class with no hope of winning. The car count could be diminished and the fans complaining “Man, it was so good last year!”.

Has Al Unser, Jr. made a statement about race control debate before the call to go green? I’d be interested to know what his thoughts were at that point in time. But I understand if he chooses to remain quiet.

Excellent article. And, I agree with you the fiasco at the finish detracted from what was a really good race given the circumstances and had numerous story lines. It’s the credibility issue that has come to the forefront. The decision has been made on who won NH but, will we ever know the truth?

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